Goddamn thieves!

About a month ago, someone broke into the Laser, right in the driveway, in
the middle of the night. The useless waste of oxygen stole the stereo I'd
spent the weekend installing, along with her boost and A/F gauges and the
gauge pillar. They apparently didn't see the S-AFC under the passenger seat,
and didn't know what to do with the ECU that was sitting out on the floor.
No damage was done, other than the stolen items. After talking with a
neighbor yesterday, it seems we've had a rash of car break-ins over the
past few months; last Friday his car was broken into, and a few weeks prior
another neighbor had theirs vandallized. Back in December, he had his truck
broken into, and $3000 worth of tools stolen.

So, in goes an alarm in the Laser, and I'm looking at a bit of basic home
surveilance gear; ZoneMinder looks
like just the thing for handing the recording, along with a cheap camera to
cover the driveway, garage, and possibly the backyard. There's some pretty
slick cameras that don't
look like cameras available that would do a pretty decent job, methinks.

It's a shame it took an event like this to get me thinking seriously about
home security, but I honestly never gave it much thought: I grew up in a
small town where the idea of locking your doors at night was ridiculous,
and "home security" consisted of a shotgun somewhere in the house, and
neighbors who would noticed any little thing that was out of the ordinary.
It's funny; I deal with weird esoteric security issues on a regular basis
in my day job, but I never really applied the same thinking to my own home.
Am I better off than I was now that I'm worried about the safety of my home?